Joe Rogan Experience #2150 - Greg Overton

Greg Overton is a fine artist known best for his Native American portraits. www.gregovertonfineart.com

Joe RoganhostGreg Overtonguest

May 14, 20241h 57mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

150 min read · 30,123 words

0:00 – 1:31
Greg Overton joins the show: podcasts, Zippos, and Joe’s samurai armor
1. NANarrator
  (drumming music) Joe Rogan podcast. Check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience.
2. JRJoe Rogan
  Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (rock music) What's up? What's up, Greg?
3. GOGreg Overton
  What's up, bro?
4. JRJoe Rogan
  Good to see you, my friend.
5. GOGreg Overton
  Yeah, dude. Dude, it's hell to see you.
6. JRJoe Rogan
  Pull up, uh, to the microphone so p- other people can hear you.
7. GOGreg Overton
  So people can hear me and see me.
8. JRJoe Rogan
  Have you ever done a podcast? Yeah, you have done a pod- I've listened to you on podcasts.
9. GOGreg Overton
  I've done... Oh, you did?
10. JRJoe Rogan
  I listen... Yeah, I listened to you on some pod... I was shooting arrows in my backyard and, uh, some podcast came up and it said Greg Overton. I'm like, "Get the fuck out of here."
11. GOGreg Overton
  (laughs)
12. JRJoe Rogan
  My man.
13. GOGreg Overton
  See, I'm doing all kinds of shit. Yeah.
14. JRJoe Rogan
  All kinds of shit.
15. GOGreg Overton
  My boy Justin, who's from Pittsburgh, what's up Justin? He does the Curious Jones podcast.
16. JRJoe Rogan
  Mm-hmm.
17. GOGreg Overton
  And we also, uh, do those Zippos, he does those.
18. JRJoe Rogan
  Oh, yeah.
19. GOGreg Overton
  So Lit Zips, uh, Curious Jones podcast. He's a cool dude.
20. JRJoe Rogan
  We got one of those right here.
21. GOGreg Overton
  Yep. The Black Dragon Samurai.
22. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah, this is the samurai that we have outside next to the... Did you see the actual samurai armor?
23. GOGreg Overton
  Yeah. Fucking crazy. And the s-
24. JRJoe Rogan
  It' real samurai armor.
25. GOGreg Overton
  ... and the sword, dude.
26. JRJoe Rogan
  And the sword. The sword is even older than the armor. The armor is from the 1800s, but the sword is from the 1500s.
27. GOGreg Overton
  So is that... That's right before the Sengoku Jidai, the time of the country at war, the 300 years where they're at war. I'm trying to think. Did it begin in the 1500s?
28. JRJoe Rogan
  I don't e- have any knowledge-
29. GOGreg Overton
  Can you look that up?
30. JRJoe Rogan
  ... of that.
1:31 – 2:58
How Joe discovered Greg’s art—and how galleries can hold artists back
1. JRJoe Rogan
  Um, so I first found out about you, I don't even remember what year it was, man. Um, I remember I was with my family, I was in Salt Lake and we were walking by this gallery and there was this fucking dope painting, this huge painting of this Native American guy with a buffalo skull that had a bullet hole in the head. And I was like, "God da-" And I was trying to figure out, "Where can I put that? Where can I put that fucking thing?" And I, I snoozed. I snoozed and I losed and somebody else bought it.
2. GOGreg Overton
  And the- and then it got bought. But I didn't lose.
3. JRJoe Rogan
  Somebody else bought it 'cause, uh, you know.
4. GOGreg Overton
  Um, but that th- Dude, it's an interesting story and I'll just tell you, like, I had... I was showing with this other gallery for a long time that that same painting was like in the back room and they weren't really giving me my props, which is what people will do if they just wanna kinda keep you at a certain level. They'll-
5. JRJoe Rogan
  So do they do that to keep your prices down?
6. GOGreg Overton
  They do that so you don't leave the gallery, so you don't get too big for the gallery.
7. JRJoe Rogan
  Oh.
8. GOGreg Overton
  'Cause... But they don't-
9. JRJoe Rogan
  So you don't go off on your own like you did. (laughs)
10. GOGreg Overton
  But, no, I'm loyal as fuck, dude. I'm still at the galleries that, that were cool.
11. JRJoe Rogan
  Mm-hmm.
12. GOGreg Overton
  You know what I mean? If you, if the people who hook me up, I'm gonna hook them up, I'm gonna stay there. You know what I mean? But I w- like, I just wasn't getting my due at this other gallery, so I decided f-
13. JRJoe Rogan
  How long had you been painting for at the time?
14. GOGreg Overton
  I mean, professionally, I think about 16 years.
15. JRJoe Rogan
  Wow.
16. GOGreg Overton
  But, you know, I've been doing it since I was a kid semi-professionally.
17. JRJoe Rogan
  Just always.
18. GOGreg Overton
  Yeah.
2:58 – 3:46
A lifelong pull toward Native American culture and the appeal of “wildness”
1. JRJoe Rogan
  Always doing art. And, uh, when did you get... I, I wanna say obsessed, that's the right word, right?
2. GOGreg Overton
  When I was born.
3. JRJoe Rogan
  With Native American culture?
4. GOGreg Overton
  Yeah. Well, I mean-
5. JRJoe Rogan
  From the time you were little?
6. GOGreg Overton
  There was books in my grandparents' house, like one of them was called Fighting Indians of the West and then there was like, uh, Russell and Remington books, the painters.
7. JRJoe Rogan
  Ah.
8. GOGreg Overton
  And so I'd just look at these photos of like Sitting Bull and, um, I was gonna say Crazy Horse, but no photos of Crazy Horse, but like Geronimo and shit like that.
9. JRJoe Rogan
  Mm-hmm.
10. GOGreg Overton
  And I just saw a look in their eye, like a w- a wild person, somebody who wasn't trapped by the system.
11. JRJoe Rogan
  Mm.
12. GOGreg Overton
  You know what I mean?
13. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
14. GOGreg Overton
  And as a little kid, I just knew that was... I knew that was better, I knew it was powerful. I just really loved that culture.
15. JRJoe Rogan
  Just connected to it.
16. GOGreg Overton
  Yeah.
3:46 – 7:14
Why tribal life can feel more human than modern work culture
1. JRJoe Rogan
  It is so fascinating that so many, um, Native Americans who, uh, got captured (camera clicks) and put into the reservation systems and then eventually like integrated with Western culture fucking hated it. But when Western people either when they were young if they got kidnapped or if they integrated with the tribes, like a lot of trappers and a lot of people integrated with the tribes, when they tried to bring them back to Western society, they all wanted to leave.
2. GOGreg Overton
  Mm-hmm.
3. JRJoe Rogan
  They're like, "Get me the fuck outta here."
4. GOGreg Overton
  Yeah.
5. JRJoe Rogan
  Like, "I don't wanna do this." It's like we have this idea that cities in... E- especially back then, I mean, you're talking about cities in the 1800s, that somehow or another it was better. You know, we always have the i- the idea that progress in terms of like what's going on right now is better than what was going on before. We always have that in our head that we're doing it the... But it doesn't seem to ring true to the human spirit. There's, there's something about human beings that they absolutely prefer that life.
6. GOGreg Overton
  Yeah. I mean, it's... Dude, you are more of a human being if you're living that life. If you're living a life in a city where you have to go do something you don't wanna do and you have to go hang out with people you really... It's like your tribe is your tribe, you belong there. It's a totally just simpler, better, more real way of life.
7. JRJoe Rogan
  I think that thing that you just said too about your tribe, because too many people today, their tribe is not someone they chose. Their tribe is just people that they're stuck with because they're working with them. You know, if you're working, like (clears throat) if you're a... Say, if you're a married person, you're a married couple and you both work, you're both with other people at least eight hours a day. How long are you together? You're together for a few hours at night and then you go to sleep.
8. GOGreg Overton
  Yeah.
9. JRJoe Rogan
  You're tired.
10. GOGreg Overton
  It's not a, a quality way of life.
11. JRJoe Rogan
  But it's not the people you chose, it's the people that your occupation chose or the opportunity for employment chose. And then you gotta deal with these fucking schmucks in your office. I've, uh, been very fortunate, I never had to work in an office my whole life. I dodged office life. But, uh, I've had a lot of people that I worked with that were...... fucking annoying, man. Just they, just got in your way. They're always there. They're always there fucking imposing their bullshit on you. And if you're a person that works in an office, especially if you have a bunch of bosses, the boss-employee relationship is so often abused. It's such an abusive place to be, where you have this person that gets to tell you what to do and make you sometimes work on weekends and make you, like, stay overtime and upset at you if you do X, Y, or Z, which has no bear ... Forces you to have the same ideological beliefs as them. Forces you to same- have the same political beliefs as them.
12. GOGreg Overton
  Crazy, dude.
13. JRJoe Rogan
  Oh.
14. GOGreg Overton
  It reminds me of that movie Office Space.
15. JRJoe Rogan
  Yes, exactly.
16. GOGreg Overton
  Like, that's what I think our country is almost like right now, is that motherfucker Milton.
17. JRJoe Rogan
  Mm-hmm.
18. GOGreg Overton
  You remember him? Who's like they're- they're always kind of pushing him to the side, seeing how much shit he'll put up with.
19. JRJoe Rogan
  He's not the stapler guy, right?
20. GOGreg Overton
  Yeah.
21. JRJoe Rogan
  That's Stephen Root.
22. NANarrator
  Yeah.
23. GOGreg Overton
  Yeah.
24. JRJoe Rogan
  That's my man.
25. GOGreg Overton
  Where he's, he's just like p- how much shit will these motherfuckers put up with?
26. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
7:14 – 11:08
School as indoctrination and escaping the standard career pipeline
1. GOGreg Overton
  And that's your, that's your life in an office. But you're ... And you're taught as a kid going to high school, like, if you do a good job here, you get to have an office job. That's what you're fucking shooting for?
2. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah, and you're working all day at school to try to do that.
3. GOGreg Overton
  Yeah.
4. JRJoe Rogan
  It's, it's very complicated, man. Trying to get through the education aspect of your childhood and the indoctrination aspect, 'cause that's what it is. It's indoctrinating you into believing that the only way that you can get by in this life is to become a part of this exact same system. So that, this is why school is structured like that. I mean, it's structured like that to teach you, but it's also structured like that where you're sitting down in front of people all day long, learning things that you don't want to learn, uh, being forced to be immobile when- when you're a child and you're- you're literally just a hummingbird of energy, just ah!
5. GOGreg Overton
  I know, those little desks.
6. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah, oh, it's so bad for you.
7. GOGreg Overton
  Like those ... Yeah.
8. JRJoe Rogan
  The in- inside, fluorescent lights when I was a kid. Terrible for you. The whole deal, thing, bad for you. Bad feeling. I couldn't wait to run away from it. Like everything, every fiber of my being was opposed to it. But they had everyone convinced that if you didn't do this this way, you're gonna be a fucking loser, and that's what I was convinced. I was convinced I was gonna be a loser. So I was like, "I gotta figure out a way to make money outside of regular jobs, 'cause I'm a fucking loser."
9. GOGreg Overton
  (laughs)
10. JRJoe Rogan
  I can't, I can't do a regular job.
11. GOGreg Overton
  (laughs) Yeah, "I gotta do a loser job."
12. JRJoe Rogan
  I have to be a loser. I have to be a construction worker. I have to do something else. I have to do something that's outside the norm, 'cause I just f- ... I can't fucking do this. I can't sit down.
13. GOGreg Overton
  Yeah.
14. JRJoe Rogan
  I can't. I just, I don't ... I have too much energy. I'm so bored. And it's also a terrible way to learn things. Like, the best way to learn things is things you enjoy, things you enjoy, and then if you learn that you do sim- something that you enjoy and you really get good at it, you go, "Oh, I can apply that to everything. I can apply that to all things in life." But they don't teach you that. They teach you, "You gotta fucking sit still. You gotta pay attention. You gotta memorize some nonsense. You gotta do some shit. Do, you ... Do these fucking calculations that make no sense to you." Like you gotta, you gotta r- memorize these fucking people a distorted version of the actual history, you know, which is almost always what they're teaching, some weird distortion written by the winners. (laughs)
15. GOGreg Overton
  Yeah.
16. JRJoe Rogan
  And if you don't do that, you're a loser. We have such a goofy society.
17. GOGreg Overton
  Yeah, that's ... But dude, we made it and we fucking-
18. JRJoe Rogan
  Well, we didn't. We were, we were born into it.
19. GOGreg Overton
  Well, I mean, we ... Like our-
20. JRJoe Rogan
  Humans did.
21. GOGreg Overton
  ... ancestors made it.
22. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
23. GOGreg Overton
  But I think they were, maybe they were trying to do the right thing. Maybe they had good intentions. Maybe. We don't know. But it turns out, it's fucking stupid. Why do we keep doing it? You know?
24. JRJoe Rogan
  I think it's industry tricked everybody. Industry gave people jobs. Jobs are easy. You know, you need to feed people. You need to eat. You need to have a roof over your head. Okay, here's a job. This way I can get a roof over my head. Especially these people that came over, like my grandparents did. They came over from Italy. It's like these fucking ... They didn't know what the hell was going on. They didn't know what was going on, you know? They were just like, "What am I gonna do? How can I feed myself?" What ... "Get a job, get a job, get a job." So everybody gets a job. "You gotta get a job." And everybody gets a ... "Get a job, get a job. We gotta eat." Because the reality of life then, in the 1920s, everybody was fucking starving to death. People were starving. Dudes weighed 100 pounds. No one had food. It was a real possibility that you could starve to death in America. People were like real poor, real poor in like the 1920s. And so they all just did it, and now we're still doing it, and everyone's fucking miserable. And then everyone gets to ... Not everyone, obviously. You're not miserable. I'm not miserable.
25. GOGreg Overton
  Well, like the people that have to.
26. JRJoe Rogan
  We dodged it. The p-
27. GOGreg Overton
  Yeah.
28. JRJoe Rogan
  Everyone stuck in that trap is miserable. They fucking hate their bosses. They hate the corporation. Can't wait to get out and talk shit about them. (laughs)
29. GOGreg Overton
  A- and, and they're like, they're pissed off at people that got out of it.
30. JRJoe Rogan
  Oh, yeah.
11:08 – 15:17
Influencers, meaning, and why art ‘stops people in their tracks’
1. JRJoe Rogan
  They don't like people that are free of it. They, they, you know ... Like I was having this conversation with my kids about, um, like podcasters and influencers. You know, they were talking about, "This girl, she's making millions of dollars and it's not ..." I go ... Here's how you have to think about that. It seems ridiculous that she's doing that, but she has a product. Whatever that product is, she's making videos or TikToks or what have you. Someone's consuming that product. She's a businessperson. It's just the business is ridiculously easy to get into and the product is nonsense. (laughs)
2. GOGreg Overton
  (laughs)
3. JRJoe Rogan
  But the thing is ...
4. GOGreg Overton
  But you gotta hand it to her for selling some bullshit.
5. JRJoe Rogan
  She got lucky.
6. GOGreg Overton
  Yeah.
7. JRJoe Rogan
  She got born in the right time. I mean, if that lady was born in the 1970s, she'd be fucked.
8. GOGreg Overton
  Yeah.
9. JRJoe Rogan
  But she's not, you know. But then, then you also have to deal with like from a psychologist's perspective. If you talk to psychologists about growing up in this time, it's one of the most challenging times, because people are inundated by other people's lives. You're inundated by these people driving cars y- you couldn't imagine driving, living in these crazy homes, flashing money, wearing all these designer clothes. Everybody's got a, got a filter on so their skin looks perfect. They look way more beautiful than they do in real life.... and you're like, "Goddamn, like, what is life? Like, what, what, what do I have to aspire to? Like, what am I looking for? Like, what, what am I gonna get out of this?" You know?
10. GOGreg Overton
  Mm-hmm. You, you don't have meaning, you don't have a sense of belonging that you make a difference. Like, that's a fucking empty, sad life, dude.
11. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah. It's a suck life. As opposed to the life that you're living, a life of an artist. Like, a life that, you know, there's ... You, you labor at these pieces that you make, and then people stand in front of them and go, "Oh." Like, dude, that one that you made for me, the, uh, the one with, uh, the guy's got all the, the face paint, like g- like, a gray and black face paint on. Do you know the one I'm talking about?
12. GOGreg Overton
  Dreamer. Yeah.
13. JRJoe Rogan
  Yes. Dude. That one p- that one's in my, uh, my, uh, library. When people walk in there, they go, "Oh, shit." I'm going, "Yeah, right?" Look at that thing. Like, you can stare at that painting.
14. GOGreg Overton
  Yep.
15. JRJoe Rogan
  You can just stare at it for hours. Like, "Whoa." There's so mu- and it's huge, and there's so much going on in it.
16. GOGreg Overton
  That's what you have to do if you're gonna actually say, "I'm an artist." It has to stop motherfuckers in their tracks-
17. JRJoe Rogan
  Mm-hmm.
18. GOGreg Overton
  ... and kinda wake them up a little bit, and then they can't even stop thinking about it-
19. JRJoe Rogan
  Right.
20. GOGreg Overton
  ... the rest of the day, because it's like ...
21. JRJoe Rogan
  Has anybody ever done that to a Jackson Pollock?
22. GOGreg Overton
  I mean, not unless they're on a lot of drugs. (laughs)
23. JRJoe Rogan
  (laughs) Maybe that's what I'm missing. Maybe it's like a Dead concert.
24. GOGreg Overton
  "I didn't take enough LSD."
25. JRJoe Rogan
  Like, "Dude, you gotta fucking-
26. GOGreg Overton
  Yeah, dude.
27. JRJoe Rogan
  ... you gotta hop on that train."
28. GOGreg Overton
  For all I guarantee, the Dead sounds way better if you're frying it.
29. JRJoe Rogan
  Oh, I bet if you're frying it, it's amazing.
30. GOGreg Overton
  Yeah.
15:17 – 24:05
Cave art, altered states, and the UFO/Bigfoot belief problem
1. GOGreg Overton
  And that's how they would communicate those deeper truths. And if you, if you look at those cave drawings, they're always ... They have the same themes, you know? Have you looked at those? You know what I'm talking about?
2. JRJoe Rogan
  I've looked at a lot of them. Yeah.
3. GOGreg Overton
  They have a, a hunter.
4. JRJoe Rogan
  Mm-hmm.
5. GOGreg Overton
  And he's kind of with the animals.
6. JRJoe Rogan
  Mm-hmm.
7. GOGreg Overton
  They're going along. And then there's, like, this big, tall motherfucker with a space helmet on or something.
8. JRJoe Rogan
  (laughs) There's a lot of those.
9. GOGreg Overton
  Right? Yeah.
10. JRJoe Rogan
  There's a lot of ... Explain that.
11. GOGreg Overton
  Yeah.
12. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
13. GOGreg Overton
  Well, I mean, I don't know if, if I have to. You have to just look at the fucking thing. They explained it.
14. JRJoe Rogan
  Well, I don't know what that means, you know? I really don't. I could ... They could have been tripping balls.
15. GOGreg Overton
  Yeah, but it-
16. JRJoe Rogan
  Or it could be that when you're tripping balls, you meet those folks, and they're real.
17. GOGreg Overton
  Yeah. That's what I was gonna say. I was like, the same with Grateful Dead, bro.
18. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
19. GOGreg Overton
  They just got taken up.
20. JRJoe Rogan
  Ah.
21. GOGreg Overton
  (laughs)
22. JRJoe Rogan
  I've often thought about that, about, um, UFO experiences, because I think maybe it's like a state of mind. There's a state of mind that you, uh, you can achieve, and you could see them. You know, not ... I mean, o- not if they're not there, clearly. But I think that they're not-
23. GOGreg Overton
  That if they're not here-
24. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
25. GOGreg Overton
  ... then they're there.
26. JRJoe Rogan
  But even if they're not-
27. GOGreg Overton
  You're there.
28. JRJoe Rogan
  I mean, they're not there all the time, right? The idea is if there ... if there's something that's traveling her- m- but it might also be that they know-
29. GOGreg Overton
  Only if, if it's interdimensional, though.
30. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah. That's what a lot of people think. It's so hard to know, because it's like, it's such a multifaceted story, right? 'Cause it's laced with bullshit, 'cause people are bullshitters, right? So, everyone bullshits. They, they s- distort something to make it more interesting. They twist it up in their own mind. Y- even your own memory is absolutely terrible.
24:05 – 26:25
Greg’s mushroom story: tearing up money and rejecting ‘the system’
1. GOGreg Overton
  And then all of a sudden, dude. I remember the first time that I really took a whole bunch of shrooms. When I was a kid, me and a bunch of my friends, like we just got ahold of some bunch of money. I'm not gonna get into that, how that happened.
2. JRJoe Rogan
  (laughs)
3. GOGreg Overton
  But, you know, long story short, we turned this money into a big bag of mushrooms. And we all went down to the bowling alley and ate a whole bunch of them.... and just cruised around, you know, tried to go bowling, that didn't work out, and just shroomed out. And by the end of the night, we're looking at the money that we still had and everybody's ... We're, you know, we had a bunch of weed, we're passing around bowls and shrooming out.
4. JRJoe Rogan
  (burps)
5. GOGreg Overton
  And, uh, we're looking at the money and we're looking at the buildings going, "The fucking system has us trapped with this money."
6. JRJoe Rogan
  Mm-hmm.
7. GOGreg Overton
  "Let's tear it up." And we s-
8. JRJoe Rogan
  Oh, no.
9. GOGreg Overton
  Yeah.
10. JRJoe Rogan
  I wish I was there with you.
11. GOGreg Overton
  Yeah, we, we started tearing it up.
12. JRJoe Rogan
  (laughs)
13. GOGreg Overton
  Everybody, all my friends who are gonna listen to this are gonna be like, "He's..." Yeah, dude, we were all there, 'cause there was probably like eight of us. All my-
14. JRJoe Rogan
  You're just tearing up your money?
15. GOGreg Overton
  Tearing up our money.
16. JRJoe Rogan
  How much money do you think it was?
17. GOGreg Overton
  We had a fuck ton of money, 'cause we just ... I was a little shit when I was a kid, so I-
18. JRJoe Rogan
  We don't need specifics to get the IRS chasing us.
19. GOGreg Overton
  Yeah, I'm not gonna ... Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I mean-
20. JRJoe Rogan
  But-
21. GOGreg Overton
  Right. So anyway-
22. JRJoe Rogan
  It was enough money that it was a stupid thing to do.
23. GOGreg Overton
  We were, we were little kids. No, it's, you know, we paid for it later. We got, we got busted, a whole bunch of shit happened-
24. JRJoe Rogan
  (laughs)
25. GOGreg Overton
  ... after that. But long story short, we're, we're ripping up $10 bills.
26. JRJoe Rogan
  Right.
27. GOGreg Overton
  This is the '80s, like, "Oh, fuck, 10 bucks."
28. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
29. GOGreg Overton
  And the next day, you'd put it back in your pocket.
30. JRJoe Rogan
  Tape it back together, yeah.
26:25 – 28:17
Working for OSHA, disturbing accident imagery, and a failed tattoo chapter
1. GOGreg Overton
  Yeah. Although I actually did work for the government, for the feds, for a while.
2. JRJoe Rogan
  Which as?
3. GOGreg Overton
  I was a, I was an artist. No, I was a-
4. JRJoe Rogan
  (laughs)
5. GOGreg Overton
  ... a graphics guy for OSHA, for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
6. JRJoe Rogan
  So what did you do? Like, what is-
7. GOGreg Overton
  I designed all the little-
8. JRJoe Rogan
  Pamphlets and shit?
9. GOGreg Overton
  ... l- like web shit.
10. JRJoe Rogan
  That say, "Don't put your hand in the machine."
11. GOGreg Overton
  "Don't carry stuff like this, don't do this."
12. JRJoe Rogan
  Oh.
13. GOGreg Overton
  And, and then they'd have me edit, like, pictures of people that got electrocuted and got their faces-
14. JRJoe Rogan
  Oh, no.
15. GOGreg Overton
  ... blown off.
16. JRJoe Rogan
  Oh, no.
17. GOGreg Overton
  And say, "Try to make this a little less bloody."
18. JRJoe Rogan
  Oh, goddammit, man.
19. GOGreg Overton
  And, yeah, that made me rethink-
20. JRJoe Rogan
  Bro, there are so many videos on Instagram-
21. GOGreg Overton
  Oh, dude.
22. JRJoe Rogan
  ... just people getting caught in machines. (sighs)
23. GOGreg Overton
  You wanna know the worst one?
24. JRJoe Rogan
  Okay, okay.
25. GOGreg Overton
  The stupidest one?
26. JRJoe Rogan
  Okay.
27. GOGreg Overton
  That I ever saw? Was, uh, three dudes wanted to get high at work. They were asphalt, uh, layers.
28. JRJoe Rogan
  Mm-hmm.
29. GOGreg Overton
  And they're like, "Let's jump in the asphalt-"
30. JRJoe Rogan
  No.
28:17 – 33:42
The bar fight that got him fired: Muay Thai, judo, and street-fight consequences
1. GOGreg Overton
  Um, but y- yeah, so I worked at Big Deluxe for a while. My friend Rich runs that shop, and he's, like, just a total gangster of tattooing and runs just a, a real tight ship. I apprenticed there for a while. Accidentally kicked my manager in the face and got fired.
2. JRJoe Rogan
  How'd you do that?
3. GOGreg Overton
  Well, I was ... There was a bar next door that we always would go to after work, and I was over there just drunk as fuck, and there was some dude in there that, like, was trying to fight me or something, and he's like, "I'm gonna kick your ass." And so I was, I was like, "All right, go outside. I'm gonna finish my beer. I'm gonna ... I'll be out there in a minute." And I was training lots of Muay Thai at the time, so I was, you know, I was ready to, like, do whatever. And so I walk out the door and my friend's holding the door open and I go, "Where's this dude that is trying to kick my ass?" And he's like, "Right here, motherfucker." He takes a swing at me. Woo. And I barely ducked it, went down the sidewalk, I was like, "All right, let's go." And I thought, "As soon as he gets within range, I'm just gonna hit him with that high kick."
4. JRJoe Rogan
  Right?
5. GOGreg Overton
  Right? And so he gets within range, I throw up the high kick and I spin around-
6. JRJoe Rogan
  And you miss.
7. GOGreg Overton
  ... to-
8. JRJoe Rogan
  And you hit your boss.
9. GOGreg Overton
  'Cause he was going, "Break it up."
10. JRJoe Rogan
  Oh, no.
11. GOGreg Overton
  I didn't even see him.
12. JRJoe Rogan
  Oh, no.
13. GOGreg Overton
  He was running out of the shop 'cause he saw us going by the sidewalk.
14. JRJoe Rogan
  Ugh.
15. GOGreg Overton
  The window's right there, he's like, "Oh, Greg, come on."
16. JRJoe Rogan
  (laughs)
17. GOGreg Overton
  And he goes like this, seriously, just hands out.
18. JRJoe Rogan
  So you went full rotation on the high kick? Good, good job.
19. GOGreg Overton
  Eh, it wasn't good for the-
20. JRJoe Rogan
  It wasn't good for him, but good technique. It would've been good, yeah. Good technique.
21. GOGreg Overton
  I did, I mean, like I said, I got, uh, I got to train some good Muay Thai in Utah, there was a couple good schools there-
22. JRJoe Rogan
  (laughs)
23. GOGreg Overton
  ... when I was young.
24. JRJoe Rogan
  You're a tall dude too.
25. GOGreg Overton
  So-
26. JRJoe Rogan
  You don't have good long kicks.
27. GOGreg Overton
  Yeah.
28. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
29. GOGreg Overton
  So tha- that was my thing. If I could hit you-
30. JRJoe Rogan
  So he got in the way.
33:42 – 36:40
Misinformation, clickbait stats, and the historical propaganda behind weed laws
1. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah, I think I read a story much more recently that he died in the hospital. I don't know if that's true though, because you know, like everything is just for clicks now. Like Bill Maher just pointed this up, that there was a, um, an article that said there's a 300% rise in measles in the United States. Do you know how many cases that is? 35.
2. GOGreg Overton
  (laughs) 300 from nothing?
3. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah, well that is true. 300%.
4. GOGreg Overton
  I was like, I don't know anybody with measles. I don't think I've ever met anyone with measles.
5. JRJoe Rogan
  It's very rare these days.
6. GOGreg Overton
  Yeah.
7. JRJoe Rogan
  You know? But the fact that they wrote that in an article, a 300% rise in measles, and everybody goes into a hot panic, and then you find out it's 35 people.
8. GOGreg Overton
  But see that's why th- like back in the day, maybe in the fucking 50s or something, wouldn't they have jumped on that shit if it was in, in the newspaper and we found out about it, "You lying motherfucker." They're, there's just so many people bullshitting these days, and we let them get away with it.
9. JRJoe Rogan
  Man, they've been bullshitting since the beginning. That's how weed is still illegal. Weed is still illegal because of William Randolph Hearst, who ran Hearst Publications.
10. GOGreg Overton
  Yup.
11. JRJoe Rogan
  And William Randolph Hearst is the guy who started printing those stories in the paper about marijuana.
12. GOGreg Overton
  Yeah.
13. JRJoe Rogan
  You know, that w- marijuana was the name for a wild Mexican tobacco. It was a slang for a wild Mexican tobacco. Cannabis was like well, well-known.
14. GOGreg Overton
  Huh.
15. JRJoe Rogan
  And so they started saying it was a new drug called marijuana and it was causing, um, Mexicans and Black guys to rape white women. White women.
16. GOGreg Overton
  'Cause they would use it after work 'cause they weren't drinking.
17. JRJoe Rogan
  No, it wasn't real. They were, they were calling it that because they were trying to get cannabis legalized.
18. GOGreg Overton
  No but I'm saying they would actually get high.
19. JRJoe Rogan
  They were trying-
20. GOGreg Overton
  But they weren't doing anything.
21. JRJoe Rogan
  They were trying to get marijuana to be illegal because they wanted hemp out of business, for paper, that's what it was.
22. GOGreg Overton
  For nylon, right?
23. JRJoe Rogan
  Yes.
24. GOGreg Overton
  Yeah.
25. JRJoe Rogan
  Nylon, Du Pont had come up with the patent for nylon.
26. GOGreg Overton
  Yeah.
27. JRJoe Rogan
  And then there was also paper mills, like William Randolph Hearst owned, um, forests that they would cut down to make trees, so he owned paper mills as well. And hemp paper was the superior paper, and so when they came out with the decorticator, which is a machine that was much better at processing hemp fiber and they had it in Popular Mechanics magazine, so they started this campaign against hemp by creating this boogeyman of a dis- a drug called marijuana that made people crazy.
28. GOGreg Overton
  It's just something to give them money.
29. JRJoe Rogan
  So that was the news... yeah. So that's the newspapers in the '30s, man.
30. GOGreg Overton
  Wow.
36:40 – 41:55
Lobbyists, exclusivity, and the ethics of selling art through galleries
1. GOGreg Overton
  It's the same thing as like, dude, I think the whole fucking problem with the government is lobbyists. When I was a little kid and I was super patriotic, like as a little kid, and I loved the Constitution, I think is...... it just is so cool, the, the checks and balances and the way that thing is supposed to work is amazing-
2. JRJoe Rogan
  Mm-hmm.
3. GOGreg Overton
  ... and awesome. But then I heard about the lobbyists, and I remember as a probably a 10 or 12-year-old kid going, "What?" And, and the teacher would say, "Yeah, yeah, it's, uh, their job to go and try to influence our senators." And I'm like, "That don't seem right. And what do they do? They take them to lunch and they buy them shit? F- to fucking convince them to make..." Okay, get those motherfuckers out of there and then we're good, 'cause then all they gotta do is answer to me and I'm the one paying them.
4. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
5. GOGreg Overton
  They're trying to get extra fucking money. That's the same thing as if I was like, you know, working for a gallery and then selling art on the side or some shit. You know what I mean?
6. JRJoe Rogan
  You can't do that?
7. GOGreg Overton
  I mean, you could, and you know what happens?
8. JRJoe Rogan
  What?
9. GOGreg Overton
  Like, and, like, customers will come up to you and say, "I saw your shit at a gallery and I wanna buy it directly from you." And so then it's on you.
10. JRJoe Rogan
  Is that... Do you have a deal, like with a gallery where, like, if you have your stuff up in the gallery, that they have to sell your stuff only through that gallery?
11. GOGreg Overton
  I mean, it- it-
12. JRJoe Rogan
  Does it vary, the deal?
13. GOGreg Overton
  Well, yeah, 'cause sometimes you have to s- you sign an exclusive and then some galleries will front you a bunch of money, so every deal is different.
14. JRJoe Rogan
  Mm-hmm.
15. GOGreg Overton
  But right now I do... I don't sign exclusive deals. I just say, you know, "You show my stuff." I still sell a ton on my own, on my own.
16. JRJoe Rogan
  But you do that now because you're established?
17. GOGreg Overton
  Yeah. But if they see it in the gallery and they come to me and they say, "We saw it in the gallery, we've only seen it there." Then I'll try to get the sale to go through the gallery to actually still cut them in.
18. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
19. GOGreg Overton
  'Cause that's not really right.
20. JRJoe Rogan
  Right, that's right.
21. GOGreg Overton
  You know what I mean?
22. JRJoe Rogan
  That's the right way to do it, 'cause they saw it in the gallery.
23. GOGreg Overton
  Yeah.
24. JRJoe Rogan
  That's the whole benefit of the working relationship of you being in a gallery.
25. GOGreg Overton
  Yeah.
26. JRJoe Rogan
  I mean, that's how I found you.
27. GOGreg Overton
  Gallery is always surprised when you do it, but who... When you bought the painting, you didn't buy it from me, you had to go through the gallery, right?
28. JRJoe Rogan
  I had to, yeah.
29. GOGreg Overton
  But I could have said, "Bro-"
30. JRJoe Rogan
  (laughs)
41:55 – 59:34
Perspective, phones, horses, and animals: getting back to real life
1. JRJoe Rogan
  That's what's really important. Even if you think you don't matter in the great scheme of things, like when people get, like, real morose and they start thinking about life as being futile and there's no reason, it's why go on and generally that's people that are disconnected from other people. They don't have anybody, like, real close that they can hang out with, that they love.
2. GOGreg Overton
  Yeah.
3. JRJoe Rogan
  You know, and, and people need that in life. It's, uh... You need, you need a tribe.
4. GOGreg Overton
  Yeah.
5. JRJoe Rogan
  You do. We're, we're tribal people. You need a tribe, like your family should be your tribe, your friends should be your tribe, you know, you, you need groups of pe- And that's a, that's a wonderful life, that's a joy-filled life, if you can have a life filled with people that you enjoy hanging out with.
6. GOGreg Overton
  Yep.
7. JRJoe Rogan
  If you could do it right.
8. GOGreg Overton
  Yeah. And those, those people that think that they don't matter, that they are alone, you know, don't underestimate the...... like, the potential you have to actually affect people's lives.
9. JRJoe Rogan
  Sure. You could turn it around too.
10. GOGreg Overton
  Yeah.
11. JRJoe Rogan
  How you feel right now is horrible, and as dark as it seems. That's not how you're gonna feel always. You just have to trust in this process. And you gotta do something. It was a funny, uh, little Instagram clip that I put on my stories the other day. This lady was talking about how she feels down, and then someone asks her, uh, "Did you get enough sleep?" "Nope." "Have you been exercising?" "Nope." "Have you been eating well?" "Nope." "Have you gone outside?" "Nope." "Have you stayed off your phone?" "Nope." "Okay." (laughs)
12. GOGreg Overton
  Why should you feel good? (laughs)
13. JRJoe Rogan
  Exactly.
14. GOGreg Overton
  (laughs)
15. JRJoe Rogan
  But that's our resp-
16. GOGreg Overton
  That's like saying, "I'm broke." "Did you go work?"
17. JRJoe Rogan
  Right. (laughs)
18. GOGreg Overton
  "Did you fucking save your money?"
19. JRJoe Rogan
  Right. Look, come on. Do you have people in your life that you love? Do you have a thing that you do that you love?
20. GOGreg Overton
  Yeah.
21. JRJoe Rogan
  If you don't have those things, you're gonna have a rough time of it. You know, that's what we here- we're here for.
22. GOGreg Overton
  Yeah.
23. JRJoe Rogan
  We're here for, uh, doing things that we love or that are satisfying, and being with people that we love. And if you don't have those things, you're, you're in a tough spot. And, you know, the, the ch- cold hard truth is, for a lot of people, you have to be someone worthy of other people's appreciation too. Like, what have you done? Who are you?
24. GOGreg Overton
  Mm-hmm.
25. JRJoe Rogan
  What, you know, what go- how, what's your character like? What are you like when you talk to people? Are you nice? Are you fun? Are you good to be around? Are, do you complain a lot?
26. GOGreg Overton
  Mm-hmm.
27. JRJoe Rogan
  You know? You want the world to be better but you complain all the time. You're just a fucking Debbie Downer.
28. GOGreg Overton
  Yep.
29. JRJoe Rogan
  Is that who you are?
30. GOGreg Overton
  Yeah.
59:34 – 1:16:19
UFO tech, Dyson spheres, AI ‘God,’ and time travel/singularity theories
1. GOGreg Overton
  Yeah. That's what makes you believe in the aliens and multidimensional beings and shit.
2. JRJoe Rogan
  Really?
3. GOGreg Overton
  The, well, 'cause the-
4. JRJoe Rogan
  Isn't it, isn't it just mutually assured destruction as well?
5. GOGreg Overton
  No, no, I'm saying, like, when humanity got all the nuclear bombs and shit-
6. JRJoe Rogan
  Mm-hmm.
7. GOGreg Overton
  ... that's when you started to see all the sightings and stuff.
8. JRJoe Rogan
  Mm-hmm.
9. GOGreg Overton
  So that, that's-
10. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
11. GOGreg Overton
  ... why it kinda makes sense that they'd be like, "Oh, what are you doing? We can't let you blow up your whole fucking planet before you even evolve to your first level, 'cause for all we know, we're still white belts."
12. JRJoe Rogan
  Right.
13. GOGreg Overton
  You know?
14. JRJoe Rogan
  Well, leafcutter ants, uh, have no idea that you have a car. They have no idea. They have no idea what a, a, a, a Bitcoin is.
15. GOGreg Overton
  Yep.
16. JRJoe Rogan
  They have no idea, you know, what 4G is. They don't know shit, and they're in-
17. GOGreg Overton
  They just know about cutting leaves and being assed.
18. JRJoe Rogan
  Right, they're th- but they're around it all the time. It's very possible that there's some shit like that in other dimensions that are equally bizarre that we just, we, we are not connected to all the time, and they might be here all the time. And if that's the case, then it makes sense that they would start showing up when we were in the middle of dropping nukes on each other. They'd be like, "Hey, hey, hey, hey."
19. GOGreg Overton
  (laughs) It'd be like when your parents heard you just beating the shit out of each other in the other room, they'd come in there like, "All right, fucking settle down." (laughs)
20. JRJoe Rogan
  "Settle down, boys." Yeah.
21. GOGreg Overton
  "You're gonna fuck up the drywall now."
22. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah, "You guys are crashing into fucking TVs and shit."
23. GOGreg Overton
  (laughs)
24. JRJoe Rogan
  They're like, "Hey."
25. GOGreg Overton
  "That's all it is."
26. JRJoe Rogan
  "That's enough."
27. GOGreg Overton
  "We're just their dumb kids in the next room making a bunch of noise."
28. JRJoe Rogan
  It might be something similar. Uh, because y- maybe they needed to let us know, like, "Hey, there's some, there's some other folks here, and they're way more advanced, and s- settle the fuck down, you know."
29. GOGreg Overton
  "You know, we're trying to bring you along, just-... you know?
30. JRJoe Rogan
  The problem is, with all that stuff, is it's so hard to know what's true and what's bullshit, just like the Bigfoot thing. It's so hard to... Well, the Bigfoot thing's way easier, right? But the, the UFO thing, see, there's way more evidence. It, it's so hard to know what's bullshit. Th- this is so hard. It's so hard to know who's telling the truth and who's lying. It's so hard to know what involvement the government has, in terms of, like, how many of these things are drones? You know, you're hearing now that a lot of these, uh, people that believe that these things are flying around, they think that what we're dealing with is some sort of a government drone, and that a lot of this, uh, off-world craft talk is really just misinformation so that they don't have to take accountability for having some crazy thing that China doesn't have, or maybe China has that we don't have, and then w- they wanna lie about it, you know, try to develop whatever the fuck they have.